Daniel Boone 1734-1820Kentucky Pioneer

Daniel Boone liked to explore and hunt in the forest near his North Carolina home. North Carolina was one of the 13 colonies before the United States became a country. Most of the land west of the colonies was forest. American Indians knew the land, but settlers knew very little about the land outside of the colonies.

When Boone heard about a good hunting area in a new place called Kentucky, he decided to move there. He was the leader of a group of pioneers moving to Kentucky. A pioneer is a person who is first to move to an area. They followed an American Indian trail through the mountains. Boone and other pioneers cleared the trail, making it a road. It became known as the Wilderness Road. The road made the trip easier for settlers who traveled it later. Boone and the other pioneers built a town in Kentucky and called it Boonesborough.